Jeffrey LaMonde | Times PhotoPinconning Middle School seventh-grader Aimee Anderson, left, looks over classmate Rachel Maillette's progress as they work on their obituaries.

Some seventh-graders at Pinconning Middle School recently were writing the stories of their own deaths.

No, they weren't time travelers. They were learning a basic lesson in journalism - how to write an obituary.

Over the nine weeks they'll be in a new exploratory journalism class, taught by English teacher Tammy Kraska and computer teacher Carolyn Luptowski. They'll also learn interview techniques and how to write attention-grabbing ledes, feature stories, and editorials in which they can opine on just about any subject they choose.

Class Acts

School: Pinconning Middle School, 605 W. Fifth St.

Principal: Mark Fuhrman

Students: 263 in grades seven and eight

What else is going on at Pinconning Middle:

• Seventh hour - The middle/high school added a seventh hour to make room for the Michigan Merit Curriculum, with the middle school using the extra hour to add an exploratory class. Students rotate every nine weeks into journalism, drama, and industrial arts, or into core classes with a twist, like a math probabilities unit that includes a Yahtzee tournament, and a 'green' science unit.

• Mandatory after-school tutoring - Any student that is failing a core class has to stay after school for one hour three days per week for two weeks, or until their teachers deem them passing. Many students are considered 'failing' because of missing assignments and spend the hour catching up.

• Academic Success Group - The school is looking at giving extra help to students that are borderline academically. They'll be taken out of their exploratory class two days a week to work on organizational and study skills, hopefully turning 'C' and 'D' grades into 'B' and 'C' grades, respectively.

At the end of the marking period, they'll each put their best writing together - adding graphics like a crossword puzzle or a cartoon - into an individualized newspaper page.

Students spend one or two days in the writing or the computer portion of the class and then switch it up.

Kraska gives them the who, what, when and where of writing, but also tries to keep the class interesting.

In their obituaries, students had to use their real names and dates of birth. Anything else was up to them - including when and how they died. If they lived to be 110, fine. If they died falling off Mount Everest, also fine.

"I want you to have fun with it," Kraska told them. "Be creative."

The standard college journalism exercise could include things like what they did for a living, what they were known for, and who they married.

Down the hall in the computer lab, Luptowski has the students doing Internet research on a famous person who already has died, gathering facts to write an obituary that likely would have appeared in a newspaper.

Rachel Millette, 12, was having some trouble finding what she needed on the abolitionist Harriet Tubman, who had been born into slavery.

"It's hard because it doesn't tell where she was born or anything," Millette said.

This is the first time that journalism has been offered to middle school students. Because the middle and high school added a seventh hour this year to give high school students more room for the new Michigan Merit Curriculum, the middle school had a room to add exploratory classes.

Teachers were challenged to come up with an exploratory class that would correspond with the core subject they taught.

"We decided, why don't we do it together," Luptowski said.

Kraska, who said she worked for many years at The Pinconning Journal, hopes that the class will sparks an interest in newswriting for some of the students so they'll go on to take the journalism class offered in the high school.

At the very least, she hopes they will learn to put their writing skills into action.

"The thing about it is you want to make writing fun," Kraska said. "That's the benefit of a class like this."